Weekend, 4-5 March 2000

NEWS BY THE NUMBERS

10. Go West, Young Sho: The first big strategy move of the summer has taken place just before exhibitors meet for this year's ShoWest convention in lovely Paris, Las Vegas. Disney has decided to take advantage of the annual F.O.T.B.M.D.M. (Fear Of The Big Memorial Day Movie) to counter program with a Jackie Chan flick called Shanghai Noon, which is more comedy than action, co-starring Owen Wilson. Last year, Notting Hill and Austin Powers 2 opened in The Phantom Menace's wake to big bucks. And as long as we're talking ShoWest, here is a mini-look at the Agenda. Monday is International Day, which doesn't include me much. Monday night, however, they show a load of indie movies in two showings, so you can see two. I don't know what the list is this year, but last year I saw the Penelope Cruz double feature, Open Your Eyes and Twice Upon A Yesterday. Tuesday starts with Jack Valenti's State of the Union breakfast, New Line serves lunch and Miramax is our host for dinner. Oh, the "is Harvey here" drama to come. Wednesday is a Sony Lunch and no dinner show, just Fox, which is screening Where The Heart Is, which is something that rarely happens (a major screening, that is) at ShoWest. Usually that's a ShoEast thing. And on Thursday, it's the big Fox lunch and the ShoWest Awards. So, no Disney, no Universal, no Paramount and no Warner Bros. However, there will be stars. Annette Bening, Drew Barrymore, Jim Carrey, Michael Clarke Duncan, Angelina Jolie, Ving Rhames and Hilary Swank will all be at the ShoWest Awards. Hot Button coverage starts Tuesday and lasts all week.

9. Speaking Of Angelina Jolie: Word is that she is in negotiations to play Lara Croft in a Tomb Raider movie. Perfect choice and perfect casting. A great choice by Jolie, who embodies that body, but can have a great movie-star time kicking butt. And perfect casting for the same reason, I guess. I have never played this game, not being a computer game guy. And I happen to believe in Simon West as a director. I think that The General's Daughter, which was not a "fun" movie, was a very well made movie. This could be, regardless of the computer tied-in audience, a very big hit movie.

8. Speaking Of Very Big Hit Movies: Forbes Magazine, which now seems to be in the list business more than in the news business, now has a Celebrity 100 List. (Visualize me smacking myself in the head.) The list attempts to combine income and media buzz to come up with a hierarchy. So, for instance, even though George Lucas earned an estimated $400 million last year, he's second to Julia Roberts, who was on a lot more magazine covers. Yes, this is Forbes Magazine, people. Not a special edition of Premiere or Entertainment Weekly. Forbes. ("The Capitalist Tool" tag is becoming double entendre.) Giorgio Armani is number 3 on the earnings list, but only number 26 on the list because he hasn't been on any magazine covers at all. But what I don't understand is, if Giorgio Armani is a "celebrity," why doesn't, say, Ted Turner qualify. I'm not being TNTcentric, but if the argument is that the name is famous, Teddy has a bunch of cable companies named after him, like Armani has clothes. But that argument would disqualify, say, John Malone, who makes a lot of money in the entertainment business, has been on as many covers as, say, Julia Roberts, but who isn't a brand name. And I'll tell you how big the celebrity is of some of these people. I don't know who some of them are and I'm a professional media whore! Who the hell is Phil Rosenthal? A trip to Yahoo! tells me that he's the Chicago Sun-Times TV critic. And he makes $25 million a year? How?!?!? Wait...this just in. Maybe he's a guy from American Melody? Or did he write a children's book? Or did he write a paper on "Pathogenesis of protozoan (malaria) and mycobacterial infections?" I don't know. Great list.

7. Is That A Gun In Your Theater?: The horror of Wild Wild West just won't die. Actually, it's a great story and I can't imagine why I haven't heard it before. Turns out that in Las Vegas at the Rancho Santa Fe, they decided to stage a fake gunfight to promote Wild Wild West. But it was not a very well promoted promotion and when people came upon it, instead of watching enthralled, they ran for cover, dove under cars and climbed walls to get away. Nine people have now gotten together to sue the theater, presumably for emotional distress and torn Members Only jackets. No truth to the rumor that distribution companies have informally agreed to release Barry Sonnenfeld movies only on Wednesdays to avoid these kinds of incidents.

6. Can You Smell The Suit Tonight?: So, how do you deal with a Sundance winner that has all the critics humming and may be a little too rough hewn for really big box office prospects? Well, if you are Warner Bros., you option the fictional rights to an Oscar® nominated non-fictional documentary (is that redundant?) called On The Ropes and make plans to make a movie about a young, female boxer who has really different problems than the young female boxer in Girlfight...we swear! I don't know if there has ever been a documentary bought to be made into a fictional film before. (I'm sure one of you out there ill correct me if I'm wrong.) And maybe it will become a great movie. But I really hope that people go see Girlfight when it hits theaters. Besides being a very good movie, you're going to want to be able to tell your friends that you got in on the ground floor of the Michelle Rodriguez express. This girl has star quality. I just hope she has some self control. If she does, she'll be huge.

5. What Kind Of Woman?: I can't take credit for this story. It's just too horrifying to be true. I can't even write about it anymore... here's a link.

4. 2(nd) Live Crew: The character actors were brought in to meet with William Daniels, president of the Screen Actors Guild, a couple of weeks after the first meeting with "the big names" and before a vote of the entire membership over expanding the freedoms afforded agents to produce, etc. The A-List meeting included Warren Beatty, Charlton Heston, Holly Hunter, Rod Steiger, Alfre Woodard, Robert Culp, Rob Schneider and Tom Bosley. So how would you like to be on the B-List if you were Jon Voight, Elliott Gould, Richard Crenna, former SAG president (and Patty Duke's father) William Schallert, Vince Vaughn, Joe Pantoliano and Mitch Ryan? I mean, Joey Pants could kick Rob Schneider's ass! What? Did he get a big table invite because Deuce Bigalow opened that weekend or did he steal Sandler's invitation? Gould is a much bigger former movie star than Culp. Voight is as wacky as Steiger, but he's turning in better performances these days too. And maybe it's time to think of Vince Vaughn for the Planet of the Apes movie. Hmmm...

"The Top 3 and ROTD"